1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a device for facilitating the kindling of fires, such as charcoal or wood fires. More particularly, it relates to a safe, substantially non-volatile product for the kindling of recreational and cooking fires.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Camping and outdoor cooking, particularly backyard barbecues and cookouts, enjoy a high degree of popularity which is rapidly increasing as more and more people are introduced to the pleasantries of outdoor living and the gratifying experience of open-air cooking. An enjoyable outdoor cooking experience normally requires the use of a suitable cooking fire and, desirably, such a fire should be easily ignited and maintained.
Cooking fires are, of course, very common and methods of starting them date from antiquity. Given the requisite skill and sufficient time, any person can satisfactorily build and ignite a cooking fire. But in many instances people today have neither the time, the patience nor the proficiency required to gather suitable firewood and kindling, properly arrange and ignite them, and then build this into a fire of adequate proportions. So, oftentimes, other materials are used to get the fire started, materials which are more convenient and better suited to ignite charcoal, charcoal briquettes, artificial fireplace logs, etc.
One simple method is to crumple balls of paper, such as newsprint, pile the briquettes or whatever other material is being used around and on top of the crumpled paper and light the paper with a match. Hopefully, the burning paper will ignite some of the briquettes and they in turn will ignite the others. However, in practice, the paper may burn too quickly, not lasting long enough to raise the temperature of the briquettes to the ignition point. A slightly more sophisticated approach, and one which provides more reliable results, is to first build a fire with small pieces of kindling wood and then place the briquettes on top of the burning kindling. The wood lasts longer than burning paper and will suitably ignite the briquettes before burning out. Building such a fire, however, requires at least a modicum of skill and practice on the part of the practitioner and may entirely negate the convenience factor of using wood substitutes such as charcoal briquettes.
Another approach has been to use flammable liquid fuels, primarily petroleum naphtha, which when properly applied are allowed to permeate the briquettes or other combustible material before ignition. Upon ignition, the burning liquid fuel efficiently heats the briquettes or other material to ignition temperature and causes them to begin burning. Petroleum naphtha, however, has some very serious drawbacks in spite of its wide acceptance. Besides being convenient to use, it presents a safety hazard and is an unpleasant substance to handle. Being a highly volatile and extremely flammable liquid, it presents an explosion and fire hazard during storage and use. Additionally, because of its volatility, there is a rapid rate of evaporation and loss during use and before lighting.
Through the years various other materials have been used to kindle recreational and cooking fires. Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 617,424 (Pflaum, 1899) discloses a sheet of paper coated with wax which is useful for this purpose, and U.S. Pat. No. 1,113,478 (Phillips, 1914) teaches a plurality of tubes dipped in wax and having ends which are cut into a plurality of strips. Similarly, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,297,420 (Klink, et al); 3,367,757 (Church) and 3,395,003 (Alexander) present variations on this same theme. Also, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,548,379 (Lammerson), 2,965,096 (Barton), 3,317,290 (Gentry), and 3,385,282 (Lloyd) disclose various disposable cooking units which typically contain the charcoal and a firestarter, usually wax-impregnated paper, right within the unit. The entire package is ignited and consumed by the fire or, in some cases, the unburned container is thrown away after use.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,007,694 (Rutherford) discloses a different type of lighter which is essentially a block of wood pulp or other vegetable fibers which has been allowed to absorb melted wax until it became saturated and was then compressed to squeeze out the excess wax. The wax-saturated block thereafter has slots cut into it to facilitate air passage during burning. In use the block is ignited to produce a large flame which will effectively ignite coal, wood or other fuel in a stove or furnace. U.S. Pat. No. 3,279,900 (Naples) discloses a disposable package consisting of a container of combustible material which encloses a quantity of charcoal briquettes and an ignition device. The ignition device is a wood fiber base saturated with paraffin wax (the wax may constitute ten to twenty percent of the total weight of the device) and in which holes have been placed to provide air drafts for the fire. The entire package is placed in a suitable container, such as a barbecue grill, and the package ignited. The flame is communicated to the ignition device and from thence to the adjacent briquettes. A device of a different nature, which at one time was used by the military to heat canned field rations, consisted essentially of a box which was coated with wax having a relatively high melting point and filled with a mixture of lower melting wax and wood flour. In use the flaps of the box were lit and the fire thus communicated to the wax-wood flour composition. The higher melting wax served the dual purpose of water-proofing the box and preventing lower melting wax from escaping through the walls of the container while the food was heated above the box.